TODAY IN CHURCH HISTORY: 19 July

[Hemidakota]

1835 - The Prophet Joseph spent much of the month in the translation of the Book of Abraham.

1847 - From the top of Big Mountain, Orson Pratt and John Brown become the first Latter-day Saint Pioneers to see the valley of the Great Salt Lake in the distance. They had rode ahead of their camp and climbed up the high mountain to see what lay ahead. They saw the first stretch of flat prairie they had seen since entering the mountain country. Fifteen wagons stayed with a recovering Brigham Young, while forty wagons, under the direction of Willard Richards and George A. Smith, went ahead with instructions to plant crops as soon as they arrived at a suitable place in the valley ahead.

1876 - Joseph Fielding Smith, Jr., Tenth President of the Church, is born in Salt Lake City, Utah.

1909 - President Joseph F. Smith arrives in Europe to visit with the Saints. The annual Netherlands Mission conference in Rotterdam becomes the largest gathering of Saints to a Church meeting outside the Stakes of Zion in the history of the Church.

1997 - Some three million hours of community service are contributed Church wide as part of the Pioneer Sesquicentennial celebration's Worldwide Pioneer Heritage Service Day.

2007 - Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from two cities in the metro Denver area (Arapahoe and Aurora) were honored on a national level with the receipt of the 2007 Take Pride in America Award. The City of Aurora nominated the Church for this recognition based on the service rendered by more than a thousand volunteers at the Aurora Reservoir during last summer's Colorado Cares Day.

2009 - The Mormon Tabernacle Choir's "Music and the Spoken Word" celebrates 80 years of live continuous network broadcasting on their regular Sunday program. The choir opened its first broadcast on July 15, 1929 and is now carried on more than 2,000 radio, TV, cable and satellite stations, as well as on the internet.